


Haven't We Met?

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Friendship, Gen, POV Third Person Limited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The drunk man in the corner booth has been staring at Fraser since shortly after he and Ray sat down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven't We Met?

The drunk man in the corner booth has been staring at Fraser since shortly after he and Ray sat down.

It's nearly two in the morning.  At this hour, the diner caters to people with irregular schedules, like Ray and Fraser, who have spent all afternoon and evening tracking a murder suspect, preventing him from taking a second life, and taking him into custody after a car chase that nearly proved disastrous for Ray’s Riviera.  Given the way the man in the corner booth is nursing his coffee, Fraser suspects the diner also gives a not-unfriendly welcome to those who have nowhere else to go.

Ray notices that Fraser's attention is wandering and follows his glance.  He shakes his head dismissively.

"Doesn't look like he's causing any trouble."

"No," Fraser agrees, rising.  "But he might be in trouble."

Ray frowns but is apparently too tired to even make a token protest.  Fraser leaves him to his hamburger.

The man in the corner watches Fraser's approach with wide, startled eyes, but his gaze drops to the table when Fraser eases into the booth across from him.  His shoulders hunch defensively, as though he fears Fraser might strike him.  His hands, both wrapped around his coffee cup, are trembling slightly.

"Are you all right?" Fraser asks gently.  The man flinches, but not, Fraser thinks, in fear.  He looks up, straight into Fraser's face.  No, not afraid.  Desperate.  Defeated. . .except that there's a flicker of hope in his eyes even as he shakes his head.

"You're not him.  I know that."

"Probably not," Fraser agrees, knowing that false hope is not a comfort in the long run.  Still, he also knows that it's a mistake to dismiss things out of hand merely because they seem incomprehensible or impossible.  "Are you looking for him?"

The man looks down at his hands again, curling in on himself, shaking his head.

"He's not real," he mutters.

Fraser thinks about a man who saw a vision of a kidnapped girl, and Walter looking for his dead brother Ty, and the ghost of his own father.  He reaches across the table, slowly and cautiously, to touch the back of the man's hand.

Cold coffee sloshes over Fraser's fingers and the table as the man jerks back.  But before Fraser can apologize, the man is mumbling, "Sorry, sorry, don't—please don't go."

"I won't," says Fraser.  "It's all right."

He sops up the spilled coffee with a wad of paper napkins, his eyes on the man's face.

"Can I. . . ?"  The man's hand moves tentatively across the table toward Fraser's.  A length of silver ball-chain wrapped around his wrist clicks against the hard surface.  He flicks a glance up at Fraser, who nods.

Long, none-too-clean fingers lightly stroke the back of Fraser's hand.  It's like the exploratory touch of a blind person.  After a few moments, the man withdraws his hand and thrusts both hands under the table.  In a different situation, Fraser might worry about weapons, but he’s confident that this man is not that sort of danger. 

"Did you lose your friend?" Fraser asks.

The man gives a snort of bitter laughter. 

"Yeah, I'm all fixed now.  Safe to walk the streets.  Not a danger to myself or others."

Released from some sort of mental institution, in other words.  From the man's appearance, Fraser guesses that he does get by.  He's thin but not malnourished, drunk but not out of control.  There are no visible marks of violence on his face or bare arms.  His clothes are shabby, his face sports several days’ growth of stubble, but he’s bathed more recently than that and his ash-blond hair is styled with some care.  So, at least reasonably functional.  As for safe. . .Fraser doesn’t have enough information to judge.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Nothing.”  The man shakes his head.  “That’s the problem.  None of it happened.”

“Who says so?”  There are more things in Heaven and Earth, after all.

The man gives Fraser a wide-eyed stare, and their eyes lock.  Fraser is used to reading people’s characters in their eyes, but he is not used to being seen and understood in return.  This man. . .for a dizzying moment, Fraser feels _known_.  Then the man’s eyes drop to the table again and the spell is broken.

“No.  Nuh-uh.  Don’t go there,” the man mutters, low but clear.  “I’m nutso, yeah, but even I know the stuff I dreamed up was crazy.  Impossible.  Leaping tall buildings in a single bound, saving the world.  You know.  If we’d—if I’d done half that crap, I’d be dead like six times over.”

“I’m sorry,” Fraser says.  He’d like to tell the man that many things are possible, but he isn’t sure whether it would do more good or harm.

“Yeah, not half as sorry as I am, b-buddy.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”  Fraser asks.

“Could you—?”  The man’s eyes dart to Fraser’s face, then away.

Fraser cocks his head and waits encouragingly.

“Touch me?  Here?”  The man taps the back of his own neck lightly with his index finger.

As Fraser hesitates briefly, the man’s eyes raise to meet his.  His chin lifts too, making him look almost defiant.

“I know you’re not—he wasn’t real.  I know.”  He nods, three sharp jerks of the head.

“I believe you,” Fraser tells him.

He reaches across the table again and cups the back of the man’s neck gently in his palm.  For just a moment, he can feel that the man is trembling, but then his body goes still, as though Fraser’s touch has flipped some kind of switch in him.  He bows his head, releasing a soft sigh.

It almost looks like a gesture of submission, but Fraser doesn’t think that’s what it is.  It feels more like trust.  Intimacy.

The man’s skin is warm and soft under his hand, his pulse beating against Fraser’s palm.  When Fraser gently removes his hand, the man sighs again, but this time Fraser hears, or imagines he hears, a word: “Ben. . .”

 _I don’t know him._   For a moment, Fraser is ready to doubt his own sanity.  But no: he’s sure he’s never met this man before.  Certainly not in the way the man seems to imagine.  Unless. . . ?

Before Fraser can think of what to say or do, the man shakes off his trance, flashes Fraser a look that might be fear or embarrassment or longing, and shoves himself to his feet.  Stumbling a little but moving surprisingly fast, he’s out of the diner, leaving Fraser staring dumbly after him.

“What was all that about?” Ray asks as Fraser rejoins him.  “Problem?”

Fraser shakes his head.  “I believe he was looking for comfort.” 

Ray snorts.  “You mean he was hitting on you?”

“No. . .I don’t think so.”  There might possibly have been a sexual element in the stranger’s longing; but not for Fraser himself.  “He knew I couldn’t be what he was looking for.”

“Well, that puts him one up on ninety-five percent of the human race, then.”  Ray pokes at Fraser’s cold, floppy French fries.  “You going to eat those?”

When they go to pay, the waitress behind the counter gives Fraser an odd look and asks him, “Are you a friend of Ray’s?”

Fraser is baffled for a moment—obviously he and Ray are friends, but why would the waitress know Ray’s name?  But no, she’s nodding over at the now-empty corner booth.  She doesn’t mean Ray Vecchio at all.

“The gentleman I spoke with earlier?  Is that his name?”

“Yeah, that’s Ray.  You don’t know him?”

Fraser shakes his head, despite the lingering feeling that he’s somehow telling a lie.

“I’d never met him before.  Why do you ask?”

“I’ve never seen him talk to someone like that before.  I mean, he’ll talk, but he doesn’t have conversations.  Except maybe with himself.  And he normally flips out if anyone tries to touch him.”  She winces.  “But he seemed to like you, so I just wondered. . .”

“I suppose we just hit it off,” says Fraser.  “He comes here often, then?”

She nods.  “When he’s quiet, we let him stick around.  He’s kind of a fixture.”

“I see.  Well, the next time. . .Ray. . .comes by, would you give him a meal?”  Fraser fishes in his hatband, wondering if he actually has any American bills on him.  But Ray already has his wallet in hand.  He gives the waitress some money and a tired smile, then puts his hand on Fraser’s shoulder and steers him out the door.


End file.
